As the article reports, Exelon's lobbying juggernaut is pulling out all stops, to gouge ratepayers at every possible turn:

“Since our last earnings call, we continue to see positive momentum for policy changes … at state, FERC and RTO levels,” said Joe Dominguez, vice president of governmental and regulatory affairs and public policy.

FERC is short for Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.A Trump administration proposal to subsidize old coal and nuclear power plants, to the tune of $180 billion, at ratepayer expense, over time, was recently blocked by a coalition of environmental, public interest, and consumer groups.

RTO is short for Regional Transmission Organization.That is where the Trump administration proposal and Exelon money grab attempt has now moved, to RTOs such as PJM (short for Pennsylania, Jersey, Maryland, a 13-state RTO stretching from the Atlantic to Illinois).

Critics got about one single line in the article:

According to its critics, Exelon is seeking subsidies for plants that are no longer economical to operate.

]]>NoNukeBailout: From your pockets to their bottom linehttp://www.beyondnuclear.org/nuclear-subsidies/2018/2/6/nonukebailout-from-your-pockets-to-their-bottom-line.htmladmin2018-02-06T23:47:11Z2018-02-06T23:47:11ZCitizens Against Nuclear Bailouts (PA) update and alert:

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and we’re feeling the love from deregulation and energy costs lower than the national average. Ratepayers in New York and Illinois aren’t as fortunate, because their states caved and enacted nuclear bailouts. This has meant higher electricity prices for families, seniors and schools, but for what?

Exelon last week announced a dividend increase to shareholders. The company had the audacity to call out the nuclear bailouts in New York and Illinois as a reason for the increase.

This is a classic case of Wall Street getting richer at Main Street’s expense. This 5 percent increase would equate to an additional $64 million per year for shareholders, according to our estimates.

Perhaps nuclear conglomerates should invest in their facilities and employees instead of fattening the wallets of their shareholders.

And they’re not done just yet. In New Jersey, a new nuclear bailout bill has been introduced, and it’s been revealed that nuclear industry officials worked with former Gov. Chris Christie to draft an earlier version of the bill:

The senators introduced the bill a day after the Associated Press reported that it had obtained records showing that PSEG lobbyists worked with the administration of former Gov. Chris Christie (R) to strengthen language in the earlier version of the bill meant to keep the company’s financial information confidential. That version, which would have provided upward of $300 million annually to nuclear operators, failed when Speaker of the General Assembly Vincent Prieto declined to post it for a vote earlier this month.

If New Jersey goes through with a nuclear bailout, ratepayers won’t be feeling any love from the industry. Instead, they’ll feel heartache and regret, just like New York and Illinois.

Continue to stand with us against nuclear bailouts in Pennsylvania!

Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts is a coalition of Pennsylvania citizen groups, associations, businesses and industry leaders who stand united to oppose government—and ultimately taxpayer--funding of nuclear bailouts.

(See how to take action in opposition to these nuclear power bailouts, towards the bottom of this post.)

The article extensively quotes "John Kotek, vice president for policy at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lead trade group."

Kotek calls for the nuclear power industry to share in the largesse of a Trump-backed infrastructure bill amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to American industries overall.

This would be in addition to the many tens of billions of dollars, or more, that the nuclear power industry (as well as the coal industry), hope to secure via Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry's call for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to bail out these dirty, dangerous, and expensive relics of the past.

Yet another subsidy Kotek advocates for is an extension of the nuclear production tax credit. The two proposed new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia (each less than half built, despite being many billions of dollars over budget, and many years behind schedule for completion) have taken so incredibly long to build, that the production tax credits passed in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, meant to subsidize their construction, will expire in 2020, at least two years before Southern Nuclear et al. say the reactors can begin producing electricity! (Production tax credits require electricity to be generated and distributed to the grid, before they can be applied.)

All of these subsidies, flowing from the public (ratepayers and/or taxpayers), would take place just after Congressional Republicans, and President Trump, approved one of the largest single transfers of wealth (from the working and middle classes, to the richest 1% and large corporations) in U.S. history -- the tax deform bill enacted into law with President Donald J. Trump's signature, just before Christmas.

In addition to the new subsidies, Kotek also calls for regulatory retreat, to make life easier for both age-degraded old, and proposed new, atomic reactors. A big push from NEI's Kotek is for so-called Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), and for such public subsidies and weakened regulations to allow the U.S. nuclear power industry to compete with the Russian, Chinese, and South Korean nuclear power industries for sales overseas.

Of course, such weakened regulations will mean increased risks to safety, health, and the environment for those who lives downwind and downstream atomic reactors, radioactive waste dumps, and other nuclear facilities. This, despite Kotek's spin to the contrary.

It is telling that he praises Republican Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) chairman Kristine Svinicki. She has long been a guaranteed rubber-stamp vote for industry interests, against public interests, as an NRC Commissioner for the past decade.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Republican NRC Commissioners for the next five years, Annie Caputo and David Wright would serve as a solid majority lock on all NRC votes in the nuclear power industry's interests.

TAKE ACTION!

Please contact your U.S. Representative, and both your U.S. Senators, and urge that such additional nuclear power industry subsidies, at public (ratepayer and/or taxpayer) expense, be blocked. Also urge that such nuclear power industry regulatory rollbacks be blocked.

You can phone your Members of Congress via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Just follow the instructions that are given, to be patched through to your Members of Congress.

(Ironically, NEI spokesman Kotek ran the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) consent-based siting public comment period, from Dec. 2015, throughout 2016, under the Obama administration. This was DOE's effort to get targeted communities to agree to hosting irradiated nuclear fuel burial dumps, or more near-term, centralized interim storage sites. During the transition from Obama to Trump administration, Kotek went to work for the nuclear power industry lobby arm, NEI. Kotek's "leadership" (mis-leadership) of the DOE consent-based siting effort is thus one of the more cynical examples of the pro-nuclear stranglehold on federal policies of recent times, and his passage through the revolving door between government and industry one of the more outrageous. But at least his true loyalties are now clear as day, and on full display.)

Law360, New York (November 20, 2017, 6:15 PM EST) -- New York utility regulators told the Second Circuit on Friday that the state's plan to subsidize struggling nuclear power plants is well within its authority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and that challengers of the plan can't use the Federal Power Act or the Constitution's commerce clause to limit that authority.

A coalition of independent power producers wants the Second Circuit to revive its suit claiming that the zero-emission credits, or ZECs, offered by New York's Public Service Commission for three nuclear plants owned by Exelon Corp....

[The rest of the article is behind a pay wall.]

Beyond Nuclear has joined with its members and supporters, as well as environmental friends and colleagues, in New York State to challenge the legality of NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo's ZEC (so-called zero emissions credits, as if routine radiation releases from every stage of the uranium fuel chain, as well as the generation of forever deadly high-level radioactive waste, are not emissions!) pro-nuclear scam in court, as well.

H.R. 1551 has already passed the U.S. House -- it must be stopped in the U.S. Senate!

The groups are protesting efforts to reward nuclear utilities, and even reactor vendors and uranium mining companies, for the failures at such new reactor construction sites as Vogtle 3 & 4 in GA, and Summer 2 & 3 in SC. (Please note this update: Summer 2 & 3 in SC were, thankfully, cancelled on July 31, 2017!)

These proposed new reactors are each billions of dollars over budget, and many years behind schedule. And yet, this legislation would extend production tax credits for new nuclear generation, because the half-built reactors are going to miss their deadline for taking advantage of the subsidy. The subsidy was first enacted in 2005 under the Energy Policy Act signed by George W. Bush. Many of these same environmental coalition groups opposed the production tax credits 12 years ago, and opposed numerous other nuclear power subsidies to boot!

Extending the production tax credit could cost U.S. taxpayers many billions of dollars, if the new reactors are ever actually completed, and generate electricity.

Consumers executives explained to concerned local residents and environmental group representatives that Entergy Nuclear, a company with a large atomic fleet, experienced nuclear workforce, and economy of scale, could afford to make the repairs that Consumers could not. MPSC, as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), swallowed the bait and switch, hook, line and sinker.

Entergy had no intention of undertaking these major, expensive safety repairs. Each abandoned fix represents a distinct pathway to reactor core meltdown, and potential catastrophic release of hazardous radioactivity into the Great Lakes environment.

The lid (reactor vessel head) replacement is now ten years overdue, even though the 2002 cautionary tale of the Hole-in-the-Head fiasco at Davis-Besse, on Ohio’s Great Lakes shore, was the nearest-miss to a reactor disaster in the U.S. since the Three Mile Island Unit 2 meltdown of 1979.

The steam generators have badly needed replacement, despite previous replacements in 1991, after only 20 years of operations at Palisades – a uniquely bad performance in the U.S. nuclear power industry. Despite degraded steam generator related permanent shutdowns at San Onofre Units 2 and 3 in California, due to major associated safety risks, Entergy has refused to perform the vitally needed job, 11 years after Consumers told MPSC it was needed.

Most infamously, Palisades has the worst neutron radiation-embrittled reactor pressure vessel (RPV) in the U.S. The 46-year old RPV is very vulnerable to pressurized thermal shock (PTS), meaning it could simply fracture through-wall. There would then be no contingency to cool the core, and a meltdown would follow. If the containment then failed, like happened at three Fukushima Daiichi reactors, then large-scale radioactive liquid discharges would flow into groundwater and Lake Michigan, and radioactive gas clouds, and particulate fallout, would contaminate Van Buren, Allegan, Kalamazoo and other counties downwind, depending on which way the wind was blowing.

In addition to all the serious safety risks listed above, as documented by Union of Concerned Scientists and others, Palisades also has had a uniquely bad plague of control rod drive mechanism (CRDM) seal failures, and even through-wall leaks of highly radioactive, primary coolant water. This epidemic of CRDM failures has continued from 1972, right up to the present.

The Japanese Parliament concluded, a year after the still ongoing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe began, that the root cause was collusion between the regulatory agency, nuclear industry, and government officials. NRC, Entergy Palisades, and U.S. Representative Fred Upton (Republican-St. Joe, MI, and U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman for many years, until just recently, with direct oversight on nuclear power safety matters) have exhibited just such potentially catastrophic collusion right here in southwest Michigan, to all of our peril.

But the Michigan Public Service Commission has colluded with Consumers Energy and Entergy too, to keep the dangerously age-degraded Palisades atomic reactor operating.

MPSC not only allowed the sale from Consumers to Entergy to proceed, but also sweetened the deal, by approving a scandalous raid on the Palisades decommissioning (facility dismantlement and radioactive contamination cleanup) fund, to the tune of $316 million. A third went to Consumers, a third went to Entergy, and a third went back to ratepayers. But it has severely depleted the fund, likely irreparably.

In a 2005 document, Consumers reported that it would cost $868 million (expressed in year 2003 U.S. dollars) to decommission Palisades, although it was not clear if this referred to decommissioning costs after 40 years of operations (by 2011), or 60 years of operations (by 2031). In a 2006 report, Consumers declared that $597 million (expressed as 2006 dollars) had accumulated in the decommissioning fund. Given this admitted shortfall in the decommissioning fund of at least $271 million, it is shocking that the MPSC approved an additional $316 million raid, worsening the shortfall that much more.

The only recourse now is either to accept a woefully inadequate cleanup, leaving significant, hazardous radioactive contamination behind in the soil, groundwater, Lake Michigan sediments, and food chain, or else gouge ratepayers yet again, to make up for the many hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars of shortfall. After all, the 67 Megawatt-electric (MW-e) Big Rock Point reactor, Palisades’ sister nuclear plant in Charlevoix, Michigan, cost $366 million to decommission. So how can the 800 MW-e Palisades reactor be decommissioned for a mere $426 million (the figure reported by Entergy as the accumulated total in the decommissioning fund, by the end of February 2017)?

Remarkably, despite MPSC’s scandalous approval in 2007, of the highest Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) that Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) executive director Tim Judson had ever seen, Entergy Palisades has still managed to lose money, to not keep its head above water. NIRS’s Judson is a noted watch-dog on nuclear power economics, as well as outspoken opponent of old atomic reactor bailouts at ratepayer expense.

Thus, MPSC has given new meaning to ‘public service’ – serving the public up for dinner, to Consumers and Entergy Nuclear. To begin to correct such disservice to the public, MPSC should terminate the exorbitant Palisades PPA.

The gouging of ratepayers, and the high-risk to residents downwind and downstream, must end. Palisades must be closed, as announced, by October 2018 at the latest, 11 years later than it was supposed to in the first place (Palisades’ initial 40-year operational license extended from 1967 to 2007). Palisades must be shutdown, before it melts down.

A just transition for the workforce and local host communities is a top priority, as is safety, security, environmental and health protection, during post-shutdown decommissioning. So too is the management of the irradiated nuclear fuel (high-level radioactive waste) stored on-site, which is why we have long called for Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS), as close as possible to the point of generation, as safely as possible.

Regarding replacing Palisades’ electrical output, the carbon-free, nuclear-free approach is the way to go. Energy efficiency is the lowest hanging fruit. Renewable power, such as wind power and solar power, is the way of the future, if we are to have a future. Efficiency and renewables are safe, secure, clean, and affordable, as opposed to dirty, dangerous, and expensive fossil fuels and nuclear power.”

--30—

Kevin Kamps serves as Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear. Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abolish both to safeguard our future. Kamps also serves as a board of directors member for Don’t Waste Michigan, representing the Kalamazoo chapter, and as an advisory board member for Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination.

]]>Opinion: Stop Cuomo’s costly, $8-billion nuclear plant bailouthttp://www.beyondnuclear.org/nuclear-subsidies/2017/2/24/opinion-stop-cuomos-costly-8-billion-nuclear-plant-bailout.htmladmin2017-02-24T22:12:59Z2017-02-24T22:12:59ZThank you to Scott Stapf of the Hastings Group for his tweet pointing to an excellent op-ed:

Fr. Bill Brisotti, pastor of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal parish in Wyandanch, Long Island, New York, concisely lays out a number of powerful arguments, in his New York Daily News op-ed, against NY Gov. Cuomo's "nuclear tax."